Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia

Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
Overview
Type	Highest organ
Elected by	Congress
Length of term	Varied from 4 to 6 years
Term limits	None
History
Established	by 1st Congress on 23 April 1919
Disbanded	by 14th Congress on 26 May 1990
First convocation	23 April 1919
Last convocation	23 May 1990
Leadership
Leader office	President
Executive organ	Presidency
Administrative officer	Secretary of the Presidency
Meeting place
	Ušće Tower
Statute
	"Statute of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia"
Regulation
	"Rules of Procedure on the Organisation and Activity of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia"

The Central Committee was the highest organ of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY), the ruling party of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, between two congresses, which it was elected by and reported to. An exception to this rule occurred at the LCY 9th Congress in 1969 when the Central Committee was replaced with the Conference, which lasted until the reestablishemtn of the central committee at the 10th LCY Congress in 1974. The central committee oversaw the work of the LCY as a whole and ensured that the guidelines and assignments adopted by the LCY Congress were complied with. It could set policy and formulate a political platform within the parameters set by the last convened party congress. All central committee members were of equal standing, including the presidency members. Specifically, the LCY Central Committee had the right to elect and remove members of its political-executive organ, the LCY Presidency, which led the LCY when the central committee was not in session.

Until 1966, the LCY was a unitary organisation in which the central party leadership controlled cadre appointments and national policy alone through the central committee apparatus and primarily through its secretariat. This system was institutionally reformed after the purge of Josip Broz Tito's long-standing heir apparent Aleksandar Ranković and replaced with a system in which the LCY Central Committee became a more independent body. With its reestablishment in 1974, each republican LC branch had two representatives and one ex officio member, each autonomous province one representative and one ex officio member and the League of Communists Organisation in the Yugoslav People's Army had one ex officio member. In this system, Tito, the LCY leader from 1939 to his death on 4 May 1980, was the only member of the central committee who was not elected to represent a constitutive branch of the LCY, and was an ex officio member through holding the office of president of the LCY Central Committee. Upon his death, the LCY presidency was abolished and replaced by the office of president of the Presidency of the LCY Central Committee. The officeholders had the right to convene the LCY Central Committee for sessions.

The post-Tito system of collective leadership succeeded in spreading power, but it was widely argued that these reforms weakened the federal party organs at the expense of the organs of the LCY's branches. With the fall of communism in 1989 in most of Eastern Europe, as well as heightened conflict within the LCY on ethnic lines, the LCY split at its 14th Congress, held on 20–22 January 1990. The congress was adjourned and did not reconvene before May 1990; in the meantime, the LCs Macedonia, Slovenia and Croatia had left the LCY. On 26 May 1990, the 14th LCY Congress elected a Committee for the Preparation of the Democratic and Programmatic Renewal to function as a provisional leadership with the task of convening the 15th LCY Congress. The congress was never convened, and the committee itself―the last federal organ of the LCY―dissolved itself on 22 January 1991.